The continuous development of technology enables electronic devices to realize the original functions in a smaller and smaller size. For example, the earliest computer was as large as a room. Later on, desktop computer was developed and then notebook computer was invented. The size is becoming smaller and smaller. As the requirement for the portability of electronic products are becoming higher, various kinds of portable electronic devices with a screen less than 12 inches emerged after notebook in the recent years, for example, Netbook, Mini-notebook, SmartBook, Booklet, UMPC, MID, etc. However, on the device with a screen less than 12 inches, according to the original keyboard layout, a full size keyboard can't be realized. At present, the solution applied by the manufacturers is to downsize each key in order to arrange the keyboard on the device. In this solution, the keys typically are only 90%˜95% the size of the keys on a full size keyboard, but it is not convenient for a user to input information through the keys in about 90% of the original size.
At present, another existing method for realizing full size keys on a small size device is to adopt a folding keyboard. The keyboard is physically folded in half or three. After the keyboard is unfolded, it becomes a full size keyboard. Anyway, this method features complex mechanical design and high cost, so it is difficult for popularization. Further, this method is applicable to external keyboards and is hardly applicable to built-in keyboards.
Users need to use 100% full size keyboard keys on various kinds of portable electronic devices less than 12 inches.
QWERTY keyboards were mostly used by writers and typers in the typing age more than one century ago. In the age of DOS command line, they were mostly used by scientists and programmers. In the current era of WINDOWS, computer keyboard becomes a tool of most ordinary users. The unreasonable keyboard layouts adopted in the typing age and the DOS age are still used at present and not developed with times. Christopher Latham Sholes filed a patent application for QWERTY keyboard in 1868. The keyboard was commercialized on typewriters in 1873.
QWERTY keyboard has four major defects. Firstly, the pressing direction of the keys in the left key area tilts towards top left. As a result, the left wrist is abnormally distorted towards the left in reverse direction during typing. Long time usage will cause serious harm to the left wrist. Secondly, the letters are not arranged in an alphabetic order, thus the learning curve is high and it is difficult to remember. Thirdly, the arrangement and positions of letters do not conform to the statistical law of letter use frequency, so it is difficult to achieve a higher typing speed. Fourthly, the corresponding relationship between letters and fingers does not meet ergonomic requirements, and the two weakest little fingers undertake the most keys.
Dvorak invented a new keyboard arrangement method in 1934. This keyboard optimizes letter arrangement based on letter use frequency, but it only improves the third defect of QWERTY keyboard and still has the three remaining defects of QWERTY keyboard.
Lillian Malt designed a MALT keyboard, which is more reasonable and effective than DVORAK keyboard. It solves the third defect of QWERTY keyboard as DVORAK keyboard does, and partially alleviates the first and fourth defects, but it does not fundamentally solve the first and fourth defects. Moreover, the letter keys on the two sides of MALT keyboard are spaced too far away, as increased the requirement for the coordination of two hands. The high cost, particularly resulting from the concavity on the two sides, the high demand on tow hands coordination and the defect of not easy for learning prevented MALT keyboard from being applied widely.
Another keyboard design adopts the layout of a QWERTY keyboard except that letter keys are arranged in an alphabetic order of the 26 English letters. This design solves the second defect (difficult to learn) of a QWERTY keyboard, whereas it inherits the three remaining defects of a QWERTY keyboard. It is also not applied widelye.
John Parkinson designed New Standard Keyboards, which model is NSK 535. This design solves the first and second defects of QWERTY keyboard and makes the learning more easier and the moving directions of left and right hands conform to the movement direction of human wrists. The learning of the keyboard is much more easier and the user of such keyboard becomes more healthier. As NSK 535 keyboard has fewer keys, it basically solves the fourth defect of QWERTY keyboard. Nevertheless, in the design, the left little finger is responsible for high-frequency letters “A, E and I”, so it is much inferior to a QWERTY keyboard in terms of efficiency and speed. Moreover, as it has fewer keys, some numbers, punctuation marks and function keys are realized by many combination keys, which are unfamiliar to users. Further, NSK 535 adds cursor keys: Up, Down, Left and Right, among letters, causing difficulty to the coordination of the left and right hands. Therefore, although the learning of NSK 535 is much more easier and the user of such keyboard becomes more healthie, it has low efficiency and speed, so it is not popularized, either.
In the market, there are also some self-proclaimed ergonomic keyboards. They only separate the left section and right section of the keyboards, but the keys on the left hand still tilt leftward. They are as harmful to the left wrist as a QWERTY keyboard.
Thus it can be seen the keyboards under the existing keyboard design solutions are either inefficient and slow though friendly and healthy to users, or not friendly and healthy to users though efficient and fast, or neither friendly and healthy to users nor efficient though cheap. Following are two extreme examples: the learning of the keyboard of a stenograph takes one year and the cost is high, but it is most efficient and fastest; the ABCD keyboard of a mobile phone can be learned more easily and is friendliest to user, but it is most inefficient and slowest.
Users need a keyboard which can solve the problems of usability, health, efficiency, speed and cost in the same time.
In the past one century, countless inventors and companies tried to invent an ABCD keyboard which is much easier to use than the current QWERTY keyboard, but none of them succeeded, so the ABCD keyboard of the present invention is non-obvious in this field. Since Eee PC came out in 2007, all computer companies, as well as Nokia and other large companies in other fields in the world have started the research and development of such keyboards for netbooks. Hewlett Packard, Sony, Toshiba, Dell, Nokia and other global large companies have put into huge human and financial resources. Although they have lots of excellent engineers, none of them succeeded in developing a 100% full size QWERTY keyboard. Therefore, the QWERTY keyboard of the present invention is non-obvious in this field.